Sarah Sutton Quotes

Try writing a book, dude. That's difficult.

Doing science fiction at a high level is tricky. It's really tricky.

Over the years, a number of people have asked me why I tend to write at this great length. I've put some thought into the answer, and it can be boiled down one word: consequences. Well, maybe two words: consequences and characters. Or perhaps, consequences, characters, and the subconscious mind - above all the subconscious mind.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

Good scripts and interesting stories are hard enough to find.

Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.

Because of all the concurrent stories going in 24 and its fast pace, it can be complicated in terms of the story, so I thought sound could help with the storytelling.

I have written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want to write books but just can't put a story together. I can put together a story that interests both me and my readers.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

If you don't spend the time you need on developing characters and finding stories, complicated stories, the audience gets tired because they think they're seeing the same thing again and again.

'Doctor Who' is part of my science fictional DNA. You could take it out of me, and I'd probably still have ended up being a writer, but almost certainly not the same one.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

Everyone has a story to tell. All you have to do is write it. But it's not that easy.

I know now why I stopped writing short stories. It was at the point when I recognised how difficult they were.

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

For 'Never Knowing,' I outlined it and then blocked it out on my office wall with index cards, but things still happened organically.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

I get the beginning. I get the end. Then I write the middle. That's how I do it.

The real problem is arranging that experience in a way that tells a story, which is just incredible enough to be interesting, but credible enough to be believed.

Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions.

The same way that some people can play the piano, I can do plots! They just come!

With 'Twilight,' you have these massive tomes that you have to condense. With 'Penoza,' we had an eight episode Dutch series that, just for the pilot alone, I condensed three episodes. So, there's a lot of filling in and a ton of invention that has to happen to fill out eight episodes.

Once I have a hook I think has potential - enough to spin out more than a hundred thousand words, then I start turning my attention to characters. Who are these people? Why did this thing happen to them? But the hook always comes first.